Conventionally, a drive operation pattern or tendency of a driver may be classified into several classes. Such classification is disclosed, for example, in international publication (WO) 2008/038374 ('374). The disclosure of '374 provides a classification technique of a driver's drive operation tendency and vehicle behavior patterns based on sensor-detected speed, acceleration, road noises, and the like, in terms of roughness of driving, in association with acceleration, braking, passing through rough surface roads, and the like.
Further, abnormalities of sensors and/or actuators have been detected based on diagnosis codes corresponding to such abnormalities and based on time-lapse sensor outputs and control data at the time of occurrence of such abnormalities, which are recorded as drive information.
According to '374, the drive operation and the vehicle behavior used for classification and categorization are generated as a result of and corresponding to a driver's operation. Further, the diagnosis code and the drive information at the time of diagnosis are stored when a sensor abnormality is detected.
Therefore, when the vehicle behavior is generated in a manner not corresponding to a drive operation at a time of no sensor abnormality, such vehicle behavior will not be detected, therefore the corresponding drive information is not stored. As a result, even when a vehicle behavior that does not correspond to the driver's drive operation is generated, cause of such non-corresponding vehicle behavior is not able to be analyzed based on the drive information.